The difference Between a Plant Cell & Animal Cell

Running head : PLANT VS . ANIMAL

Plant vs . Animal Cell

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Plant vs . Animal Cell

The cell is the basic unit of life and is the smallest structure capable of fundamental life processes (King . Thus , plants and animals around us are also made up of these cells . Although there are two structural types of cells , the prokaryotic and the eukaryotic cells plants and animals both consist of eukaryotic cells . However , plant and animal cells are significantly dissimilar . The three major structural

br differences of these two cells are the cell wall , the chloroplasts or plastids and the central vacuole (http /www .northern .edu

Plant cells have cell walls while animal cells only have cell membranes . Cell walls are made up of cellulose which tolerates high pressure build up inside the cell while cell membranes in animals are not capable of enduring high pressures (Ellis-Christensen . In addition plants are capable of photosynthesis which requires specialized structural components . This is evident in a plant cell which contains plastids such as chloroplasts that are actually absent in animal cells (http /www .botany .uwc .ac .za . Chloroplasts are responsible for converting light energy from the sun into glucose which is used as an energy source (King . Another major difference of a plant and an animal cell is that of the size of their vacuoles . In plant cells , there is a single central vacuole that usually takes up most of its cell volume whereas , in animal cells , vacuoles are usually small and numerous (http /www .northern .edu . Animal vacuoles , if present in the cell , are tiny and contractile , even some serve only as temporary vesicles (http /www .botany .uwc .ac .za . Furthermore , a plant 's central vacuole is the storage section of a cell while the animal vacuoles have different specific functions (King . Other minor differences between the plant and animal cell are : some plants have glyoxysomes , which are absent in animal cells and whose function is to convert fatty acids to carbohydrates (http /www .northern .edu centrioles for mobility are always present in animal cells while in plants , they are not always present lysosomes are not always present in plants while they are essential waste disposal organelles for animal cells (http /www .botany .uwc .ac .za and , plant cells have a regular shape while animal cells have varied shapes (Ellis-Christensen

In summary , plant cells and animal cells have three major differences Plant cells have a central vacuole while an animal cell consists of several small vacuoles . Plant cells have chloroplasts which are absent in animal cells . Plant cells are protected by a rigid cell wall while animals do not have cell walls